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Sarah Onyango Obama is the third wife of President Obama's paternal grandfather. She lives in a remote Kenyan village.

It was recently discovered that Sarah required surgery for an unspecified problem, and the nearest full-service hospital was the Israeli-operated Shalom Hospital in the Guinean capital of Malabo.

The elderly Obama was personally escorted by Guinean Health Minister Tomas Mecheba Fernandez, and after her treatment was quoted as saying, "All of Africa is talking about your [the Israeli] hospital and the fact that one doesn't need to fly to Europe to get medical treatment."

Israeli humanitarian aid groups and teams of doctors have for years been providing free and low-cost assistance to the poorer regions of Africa. In particular, free eye surgeries are performed at a number of facilities across the continent.

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